The niece of a Florida couple reportedly nabbed in Haiti by a violent gang on the first day of their trip to the island nation is becoming uncertain as the days and weeks go by even as a new report suggests the abduction could’ve been avoided.
Abigail and Jean-Dickens Toussaint, both 33, were kidnapped in the Port-Au-Prince area on March 18. The married couple was taken from a bus traveling from the airport to a festival in Léogâne, the Haitian Times reports.
US State Department officials have confirmed that they are working with Haitian authorities and “U.S. government interagency partners” to bring the couple home.
But as her relatives are detained by gangs that have taken over most of the nation’s capital city for almost a month, Christie Desmormes says she was hopeful at first, but now she’s “weary.”
The Toussiants were still being held as of April 10. Desmormes said the family spoke to her uncle on March 25, and he told them that he was “tied up but OK.”
A witness to the kidnapping told Voice of America members of the Grand Ravine/Ti Lapli gang first demanded $1,000 from the driver of the transport vehicle to pass the checkpoint about 7 miles south of Port-Au-Prince.
“He gave them $500 instead,” the witness said. “The men told him, ‘Hey, you know the price is $1,000, and you’re giving us just $500? Go park the bus.’”
The man who told Voice of America that he was also a passenger on the bus said they put their money together and came up with $700, but the gang members again demanded the full sum. After returning to the bus, the group scraped together another $300, but gang members refused to accept it and ordered them back to the bus, the eyewitness said.
A black BMW then pulled up to the location, and a man inside demanded that the bus driver follow it.
“If the driver had done what he was supposed to do [pay the $1,000 up front], this may not have happened,” the eyewitness, who wanted to…
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